Hi, I’m Terry Phillips. I hope you’ve been enjoying my “After the News” podcasts that focus on local, national and international issues.

You know, there are many ways to practice journalism. That term can apply to straight news reporting, commentaries, and even public relations. I’ve tried all those things and believe me, the intent might be different, but the craft is pretty much the same.

I’m about to enter a new phase of my career, writing and editing for an online encyclopedia of politics. The goal is to make this material interesting and informative, but as neutral as possible. There’ll be no provocative questions, no point of view, no bias of any kind. At least that’s the intent. It’s essential for readers of these articles to know that they are getting (as Dragnet’s Sgt. Joe Friday) used to say, “Just the facts.”

I’ll let you know when my new work begins, and where you can find it. For now, let me just say thanks for listening. Please stay tuned. And as always, please, tell your friends.

Someone supposedly once asked oil tycoon John Rockefeller how much money was enough. He replied, “More.”

We Americans have been wrestling with the issue of a minimum wage for more than 100 years. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked early attempts to regulate employee compensation.

The federal government finally established the first minimum wage during the Great Depression. In 1938, it was set at 25 cents an hour. That doesn’t sound like much. But in today’s dollars, it’s about four bucks an hour. Still not that much.

Every time there’s a mass shooting reported in America, which means pretty much every week, various so-called experts come out with their opinions about firearms and violence. These people all have one thing in common: a lack of independent data.

What do you make of the Obama administration giving Shell Oil permission to drill in the Arctic Sea off the coast of Alaska? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I contemplate that question every time I fill up my midlife Chrysler and curse the pump prices. Living in oil rich Bakersfield doesn’t help much. In addition to producing fruits, nuts, air pollution and country western music, we extract about ten percent of the nation’s petroleum. But the costs are nearly as high here as everywhere else.

Unless you live in Philadelphia PA, you might not know that about a dozen transit police officers there were involved in arresting a passenger who allegedly had not paid his $2.25 fare. As we can see in a viral video, the suspect was pulled off the train, handcuffed and shoved against a wall — all while holding his infant daughter in his arms. The incident was cringe-worthy, to say the least, and drew immediate criticism from both the police administration and the general public.

The ongoing discussion in America over removal of Confederate battle flags reminds me of other efforts to cleanse the sins of the past. For example, as you might know it’s illegal in Germany to display symbols of the Third Reich such as the swastika. It was part of that country’s postwar de-Nazification law. In the 1950s, Nikita Khrushchev tried to de-Stalinize the U.S.S.R. by eliminating evidence of his predecessor — such as deleting Stalin’s photographs from history books. Similarly, Boris Yeltsin tried to de-communize Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. But in each case, these attempts failed to eradicate extremism.

Flags. What are they good for? As with war, some say absolutely nothing.

Of course, for millions of people in the United States and around the world, flags symbolize passionately-held feelings of patriotism. Veterans wave them. Citizens pledge allegiance to them. Composers write Broadway musicals about them. But surely a flag couldn’t cause murder, right?

Imagine seeing a banner that represents your culture and your history. But it also represents a country that no longer exists. In fact, imagine that your flag is banned and even hated by some of your fellow countrymen. It generates such animosity that some are willing to kill because of it.